


call my bluff, call you babe

by withkissesfour



Series: let our walls cave in [5]
Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: M/M, Pet Names, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:07:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24588841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withkissesfour/pseuds/withkissesfour
Summary: He’s befuddled by this place, all chintz and mahogany and mystery, but he knows the pattern in the creaks on the floorboard outside Patrick’s bedroom, and how to work the remote for the television, and the loud whirr of the old oven, and where the tea towels are kept. He supposes he’s been playing house too. He supposes this is being in love.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Series: let our walls cave in [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1402012
Comments: 13
Kudos: 142





	call my bluff, call you babe

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt was pet names, from my [Soft fic prompt meme](https://aboldclaim.tumblr.com/post/184870558900/a-soft-fic-prompt-meme) over on tumblr. Go check it out if you like!
> 
> Set sometime around 5.01 The Crowening

“There’s pizza in the oven, sweet cheeks.” 

The greeting is garbled against his mouth, warm lips and a baseball cap disappearing as soon as they’d appeared at the front door, left open for David to make his own way in. Every conceivable light in Ray’s house has been turned on, and the low dribble of the evening news on the television carries over retreating footsteps, chaotic, like a baby elephant in search of the bathroom. 

There are remnants of a day off strewn across the house, hiking boots muddied and stood atop newspaper by the entrance, a pile of folding on the chair of the couch, spreadsheets lingering perilously near a sink half full of dishes in the kitchen. There’s a candle on the breakfast table, and a pizza box near the bin, and a corkscrew plunged halfway into a bottle of red, it’s metal arms clinging to the middle screw like a soldier standing to attention.

Patrick is playing house when the owner is away at some closet organisation convention, he thinks. Patrick is trying to take up enough space, enough noise, enough mess, enough light for it to feel like his place, for it to feel like their night. Patrick is playing house for _them._ He’ll be smoking a pipe, next. He’ll start wearing glasses, or flinging tea towels over his shoulder when he cooks, or read the newspaper on the front step. He’ll be wearing house slippers and growing a moustache and calling him -- peaches? _Sweetpea?_

“What did you call me?”

An answering flush comes from somewhere in the depths of the house, a labyrinth he’s never cared to explore any time he’s spent the night. He’s befuddled by this place, all chintz and mahogany and mystery, but he knows the pattern in the creaks on the floorboard outside Patrick’s bedroom, and how to work the remote for the television, and the loud whirr of the old oven, and where the tea towels are kept. He supposes he’s been playing house too. He supposes this is being in love.

_ Falling  _ in love had been chaos, a madcap adventure in want and worry he’s done a thousand times before. He’d always fallen quickly, always invented the best parts in people that didn’t have any, mapped out futures that never had a chance, let himself be hurt and hurt and hurt, while he’d wanted and wanted and  _ wanted.  _ He’d wanted Patrick. He’d wanted Patrick to want him. He’d wanted him to like him. He’d wanted Patrick to hurt him, to prove some point, and when he did, David had held the hurt of Rachel out in front him like a trophy for a week before he realised it didn’t feel like a victory. This feels like a victory. Wednesday night, someone else’s house, candle on the table and pizza in the oven and someone who loves him a few corridors away, feels like a victory. 

He’s managed to burn himself by the time Patrick plods back into the kitchen, his wrist grazing against the element as he retreats from the oven with the pizza. 

It doesn’t occur to him to be in pain at first. He watches the warmth blossom across his skin, in bright pink blotches along the crease of his wrist and beneath the cuff of his sweater. It’s only when he feels a hand at his back, guiding the tray to the stove top and his arm towards the sink, that it starts to sting. It’s a sharp pain for a small burn, a battle wound in the search for pepperoni that has set his nerves alight, that has driven him to distraction.

He chews at his lip, tries to preoccupy himself with watching Patrick, who lets the tap run cold and is slow to push the woolen sleeve up David’s forearm, hooking a finger into the material and guiding it as far back as it will go. David envies his composure, feels safe in his softness, his socked feet and old jeans and the short curls peeking out from beneath his cap, and his easy silence, and his hand, holding David’s. The cold bites when the water hits his wrist, but David can feel Patrick’s fingers still caught in his, his baseball callouses rough against his knuckles, his body warm and still and solid and quiet beside him.

“Sweet cheeks?” he muses. 

“Mmhm?” 

“No,  _ I’m  _ sweet cheeks.”

“Alright”, he catches laughter tugging at Patrick’s features, can feel it bubbling on his lips when he presses a kiss to the curve of David’s shoulder, but his voice is even when he pulls away, “If you like.”

“No, I’m just wondering - ”, he starts, huffs, tries to flick the icy water battering his warm skin at Patrick’s threadbare college tee, well-worn and moth-eaten. The water lands on the cork floor instead, and Patrick sidesteps it, shuffles quietly to the cooling pizza. “I’m just wondering  why  you said that _. _ ”

There’s a spot of tomato at the corner of Patrick’s mouth when he turns, and a slice of pizza in each hand, held towards David like an offering, like recompense, like a tease. David’s still half-trapped in the sink, his arm beginning to numb under the tap. 

“Said what?” he asks, arranging the slice crust first into David’s free hand, and David wants to marry him. He wants to get on bended knee on the wet cork floor, pledge life and limb to the man in the baseball cap, leaning against the counter next to him, tongue darting out to catch the pizza sauce, and missing. He wants to tease him. He wants Patrick to keep teasing him. He wants to ask him how his day was. He wants to tell him about the store. He wants him to never say it again.  _ Sweet cheeks.  _ He wants him to say it.

Say it again, he wants to say, like he did at the door when he kissed him hello, like he liked that it sounded stupid, and he knew David would hate it, and he knew David would like it, too. He said he like he’s said it forever, like he’ll say it forever, or say another million names at a million other times - with a kiss hello, or a kiss goodbye, before coffee, after dinner, as the sun rises, and when they’re fucking, when they’re flirting, when they’re miles away from each other. He wants him to say it all the time, that’s what he wants to say. 

Instead, David leans forward, licks the tomato from the side of Patrick’s mouth. He can feel his nose wrinkle at the sensation, can feel a smile grow against his own lips, can feel him mumble as they kiss, lazily, revelling in the hard-won privacy of their night.

“If it helps, it was in reference to your sweet -” 

“No.”

“- cheeks.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Taylor Swift's "It's Nice to Have a Friend", because all of Taylor's songs are about them. 
> 
> Thank you for the prompt! 💓


End file.
